I buried my nose in them as I introduced Noah and Jade. I noted with amusement that he did practically seem to wag his tail. He handed Jade her flowers and her eyes sparkled.
"What a gentleman," she gushed. "I love a man with manners." And that was all it took.
Noah was eating out of her hand from that moment forward.
I rolled my eyes and led them in. "It’ll just take a minute to put these flowers in water.
Whose car do you want to take? Mine? Then we can put the top down."
"That’s fine," Gavin agreed. "But let me drive. Please, by all that’s holy, let me drive."
Everyone laughed and I scowled.
"Why does everyone keep teasing me about my driving?" I demanded. "I’m a great driver!" They didn’t need to know that I had crashed into a ditch yesterday. And they especially didn’t need to know that I had hit a deer, killed a deer and then watched as it came back to life and ran away.
Gavin rolled his eyes as he drew me in for a hug. "I know, sweetheart. You are. But can I drive anyway?"
I shook my head but relented. It didn’t matter to me anyway. Jade and I hurriedly stuck our flowers in a couple of vases, grabbed our purses and we all piled into my little car. Turning around in the passenger seat, I had to laugh. My backseat was tiny and Noah was really, really large. He and Jade were crammed together like a couple of sardines. And next to him, she looked like a tiny doll.
Gavin looked in the rearview mirror and laughed. "Maybe we should’ve taken my car after all."
Noah looked appalled.
"No way. I’m good." He wiggled down into the seat, which put him even closer to Jade, a fact that he obviously enjoyed.
"I bet you are," Gavin acknowledged. "So, where to? Dinner and a movie?"
"You know," I mused. "That was the plan but I’m kind of in the mood for a walk on the beach. Can we go to dinner and then maybe to Santa Monica or somewhere?"
Noah was quick to agree.
"A walk on the beach would be awesome. And Santa Monica is only an hour away. More or less." He looked at Jade. "Is that fine with you?" he asked hopefully.
She smiled her famous grin at him and I had to marvel at it. It was the same one that she had possessed when she was Cleopatra. She had charmed kings with that smile. And it was no less effective on Noah. He practically swooned into her lap as she spoke.
"Of course. That would be fun. I don’t have any other place to be."
She slid her sunglasses down onto her nose and settled back into the seat. Noah tried to inconspicuously drop his arm around her shoulders, but he was about as subtle as a Mack truck. I saw her smile at the gesture and she didn’t move away. Of course, to be fair, there wasn’t really anywhere to go.
Gavin drove quickly to a little nearby Italian place.
"I hope you guys don’t mind but I’d rather eat before we drive to Santa Monica. I’m starving."
"You’re always starving," I pointed out affectionately.
"True story," he agreed. "Is this place fine with you?"
I nodded. He knew that it was. He and I came here a lot. It was tiny, quiet and out of the way. The hardwood booths were just right for intimate dates. They each had a dark stained glass lamp hanging overhead with dim lights and a candle on each table. They also had the best fresh bread in town.
I slid into a booth and Gavin scooted in beside me, pulling me up close to him. I snuggled in, dropping my head into the crook of his shoulder as I looked absently at the menu. I had been here a hundred times before. I had the thing memorized.
"Well, look what the cat dragged in," a cold voice greeted us.
I looked up to find Tara Wilson standing next to our table with an order pad in her hands.
The look on her face was venomous. I felt my stomach sink into my shoes. There was no way I could order their squash-filled ravioli now. She would probably spit in it. I calmly pasted a pleasant expression on my face so that she wouldn’t know that she annoyed me.
"Oh, hi, Tara. I didn’t know you worked here."
"I just started last week. And I wouldn’t have if I had known that you came here."
So that was how it was going to be.
I could feel Jade’s surprised gaze on my face as I met Tara’s cold stare.
"Look, Tara. As far as I’m concerned, it’s all water under the bridge. You’re with Derek now. I’m with Gavin. There’s no reason for drama. It doesn’t matter anymore." I could see from her set expression that my words had fallen on deaf (or ignorant) ears.
"Sure and if you would just stop calling my boyfriend, it wouldn’t matter to me anymore, either!"
I could practically feel my mouth drop open and I slowly shook my head.
"Um, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I haven’t called Derek in a very long time.
He’s all yours."
"You’re right. He’s all mine," she snarled. "Don’t forget it."
She turned to Gavin. "I don’t know what you’re doing with Macy. You’re way better than her."
He stared at her coolly. "You know, you make me forget that my mother taught me to be a gentleman."
She smiled a trashy smile at him. "Well, I could teach you lots of things that your mother can’t. Call me sometime." She laid her stubby hand on his shoulder and squeezed it. I flinched.
"No, thank you," he answered, removing her hand. He edged past her and got out of the booth.
"If you guys don’t mind, I don’t like the atmosphere here anymore. Let’s go somewhere else."
Jade quickly murmured her agreement and we all scrambled out of the booth and tried to keep up with Gavin as he strode for the car. Jade glanced over her shoulder as Tara watched us leave. As soon as we piled into the car, Jade turned to me.
"What was that all about? What did you do to her?"
"More like what did she do to me? My ex-boyfriend cheated on me with her last year."
Her head whipped back around and she stared at me agape.
"With that? That’s um insane."
"Thank you," I replied with some satisfaction. I was glad people could see how trashy she was. "It’s okay. I’m way over it."
"As you should be. It’s obvious that you traded up," Gavin smirked. I laughed and the mood was broken. The negative fog that Tara had brought down on us lifted.
"Come on, guys. That girl shouldn’t ruin our night. Let’s eat in Santa Monica, hmm?"
And with that, the tension was gone. I could hear Jade and Noah chattering in the back seat as I sat in the front, enjoying how the fall breeze blew over me. Gavin reached over and squeezed my hand and I pulled his hand up to kiss it, then held it snuggled into my lap. Being with him felt so incredibly right and it was easy to put Tara and her stupid games out of my mind. I hung my right arm over the side of the door and the hour drive passed quickly.
Instead of eating in a sit-down restaurant, we decided to grab hotdogs on the boardwalk and eat on the beach. The Pacific stretched far and wide from one side of our periphery to the other, sparkling in the evening sunlight and luring us down to the water. After we grabbed a blanket from the trunk of my car, we headed down to the beach.
"I’m not even going to ask why you have a blanket in your car," Noah laughed suggestively as he leaned around Gavin to nudge me. I shook my head.
"It’s not what you’re thinking. I also carry jumper-cables, water and flares. My mom insists on it. Can you say over-protective?" I popped him on the arm and almost lost my hot dog in the process. I recovered it and took another big bite.
"Like your little car is going to break down!" Jade rolled her eyes. "Now, my car on the other hand"
Gavin reached over and wiped a drop of mustard from my chin, then leaned in and kissed the same spot.
"Now you’re all dirty. Wanna go swimming?" he asked softly, his dark eyes gleaming in the dying sunlight. I glanced out at the choppy water. The sun was hanging on the edge of the horizon, enormous and amber. I decided that nothing was more beautiful than a sunset on the ocean right before I decided that the water was too rough to swim in. But I didn’t want to admit that part.
"I don’t have a suit," I pointed out primly.
"So? Swim with your clothes on. You’ll dry off before we drive home," he coaxed. "Come onyou know you want to."
And I did. I had been a swimmer since the time I was small, but actually, I loved the water in every life. When I was Charmian, I swam in the bay by Alexandria, in the sparkling turquoise water of the Mediterranean. The water was soothing and warm and. I shook myself from the memories. I was in California now.
"Well, I definitely would but I don’t know how to swim," Noah announced.
I stared at him slack-jawed. How in the world could a big, strapping athlete like him not know how to swim? I asked him as much and he looked sheepish.
"I don’t know. When I was little, my mom had this irrational fear that I would drown, so she never wanted me to learn. And as I’ve gotten older, I guess I just felt stupid going to swimming lessons with the five year olds!" he laughed, but quickly added, "And don’t look at me like that, Lockhart. I could learn in a second, if I wanted to."
I rolled my eyes and Jade giggled, her eyes snapping.
"Prove it!" she demanded playfully. "See that buoy out there?" She pointed to a buoy two hundred yards from shore. "Swim to it."
I wondered how in the world Noah was going to get out of this one. Like most of the football players that I knew, his ego was out of control when it came to his athletic prowess.
He was staring at Jade thoughtfully now, his blue eyes contemplating her.
"I could, you know," he insisted.
"Oh, we know," I interrupted. "But I want to be around to see it and right now, I want to go for a walk with my boyfriend."
"That must be my cue," Gavin drawled. "And I had just gotten comfortable. Oh, well. I’d rather stroll the beach with a beautiful girl, anyway." I reached down to help him up.
"Sorry about your luck you’ll have to settle for me."
"I know. The most beautiful girl in the world." He leaned down and kissed me on the tip of my nose.
"Ugh. Puke. Get a room!" Noah gagged. Gavin laughed.
"Come on, woman. We’ve got a walk to take." I froze for a moment, because that was exactly what he would have said as Hasani. And I didn’t know why I was surprised. They were the same person. It was just always so startling when he said something uncanny like that. I couldn’t help it.
I smiled and took his hand and we strolled along the beach barefoot. As I looked around us, it truly seemed like something out of a travel brochure. Sea gulls flew overhead, their screams filling the air. There were hardly any people here and the quiet as serene. It was perfect and something that we’ve done together in so many different lives.
We walked silently for awhile, enjoying the soothing crash of the ocean, before Gavin spoke.